The invention relates to a carriage with a running gear and lighting equipment to inspect pipe lines. At least two cameras are disposed in a common housing and at least one camera comprises means for changing the angle of view. The invention further relates to a method for inspecting pipe sections and/or displaying the findings of the inspection by means of a carriage is provided.
Such a carriage is disclosed in DE 35 22 149. This documents shows a device for the remote inspection of pipe lines. In this device two cameras are disposed in a common housing and optical means, i.e. a mirror or a prism, is provided for rotating the housing in order to rotate the optical means about an axis parallel to the axis of the carriage. In this way it is possible for one camera to view into the pipe and the other camera to check the circumference of the pipe.
Of disadvantage in this device is in particular that the optic axes of the cameras are offset. This changes the optical distance of the cameras during the swivelling of the mirror.
A further carriage is disclosed, for example, in EP 1 022 553 A2. Said document describes a camera carriage for inspecting channel pipes comprising two electronic cameras, of which the one is located at the front end of the carriage and the other camera at the back end of the carriage. Both cameras are equipped with a wide-angle lens acquiring a hemispheric space. The digital image signals are stored and can be optically analyzed at a later time.
This known carriage has the disadvantage that it is not possible to inspect pipe branchings with it, since the fisheye lenses are fixedly connected with the carriage. Moreover, the detailed inspection of pipe coupling sleeves is not possible with this known carriage.
The complicated cable routing is a further disadvantage. The energy supply and data cable terminate conventionally in the rearward region of the carriage. However, this region is occupied by the additional optical system of the camera. In order to be able to maintain contact with the carriage, the cables must be routed around the back fisheye optics.
In addition, EP 0 623 814 A2 describes a camera housing swivellable or rotatable about two axes orthogonal with respect to each other.
Lastly a device for inspecting pipes is disclosed in DE 42 06 609 A1, which utilizes a thermal imaging camera.